CHAPTER I 



THE PINE PROCESSIONARY : THE EGGS 

 AND THE HATCHING 



THIS caterpillar has already had his story 

 told by Reaumur, 1 but it was a story 

 marked by gaps. These were inevitable in 

 the conditions under which the great man 

 worked, for he had to receive all his mate- 

 rials by barge from the distant Bordeaux 

 Landes. The transplanted insect could not be 

 expected to furnish its biographer with other 

 than fragmentary evidence, very weak in those 

 biological details which form the principal 

 charm of entomology. To study the habits 

 of insects one must observe them long and 

 closely on their native heath, so to speak, in 

 the place where their instincts have full and 

 natural play. 



With caterpillars foreign to the Paris cli- 

 mate and brought from the other end of 

 France, Reaumur therefore ran the risk of 



1 Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur (1683-1757), 

 inventor of the Reaumur thermometer and author of 

 Memoir es pour servir a I'histoire naturelle des insect es. 

 Translator's Note. 



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